


The Corps is Mother

by AlterEgon



Category: Babylon 5
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-16
Updated: 2012-12-16
Packaged: 2017-11-21 07:13:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,233
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/594935
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlterEgon/pseuds/AlterEgon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A few snippets of the life of Talia Winters.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Corps is Mother

**Author's Note:**

  * For [queenbookwench](https://archiveofourown.org/users/queenbookwench/gifts).



> Happy Yuletide!
> 
> Since your optional detais said you'd be happy with any of the characters, I chose to focus on one of them rather than try to fit all four into a story. I hope the result is to your liking.

2239

"But we are home. This is our family."

Talia shook her head, burying her face deeper in her arms. She may have been barely six years old, but she did know who her family was. Her family were the people she had been taken from, the people she was being told now didn't want her, because she was not like them. Because she was different. Because she was special.

Because she was better than them and should be living among her own kind, other people better than _them._

She didn't care. She wanted to go back to the life she knew, her life, her family.

"The Corps is your family. The Corps is Mother, the Corps is Father."

The one sentence most often repeated to her in the last weeks and months. The Corps was no such thing. It may have been different for those who had never had a family of their own, those who had been taken in as babies, those whose parents did not want them.

Her parents wanted her. They didn't care that Talia was different.

Did they?

The adults caring for them in the cadre, her new _family_ , said they did.

She couldn't believe it, wouldn't believe it. It just wasn't possible. They were her parents after all!

The Corps…

She had asked the other girl about her family, her parents, and received nothing but a blank look, not comprehending what she was asking about. Even though much more advanced in her skills than she was, the other girl was also too young to make targeted use of her telepathy to understand what was so far out of her scope of experience.

Or to answer her question.

The Corps was not her mother. The Corps was not her father. She knew who her father and mother were. She knew what they looked like and she was not going to let go of that memory.

She had already made the experience that defiance was not handled well at PsiCorps.

Young as she was, the need for secrecy was overwhelmingly clear in her mind.

So as the other girl tried to awkwardly comfort her badly adjusted, always-crying cadre mate who kept painfully yearning for her old home, her old life, the comfort of her birth family, and unwittingly disrupting things in the cadres by broadcasting as much of it as her untrained, young mind and just blossoming telepathic skills permitted, Talia set to burying those memories she knew she needed to hold on to in a crevice of her mind, vowing to herself to protect it well.

She didn't hear the door slide open or the newcomer enter the room before, through her distress and her efforts, she sensed a presence much stronger than that of the other children her age nearby.

"… it's okay. You run along to play," a woman's voice said.

There must have been things said before that she had missed. She felt, rather than heard, the other girl get up and leave.

A gloved hand was placed lightly on her shoulder.

"Hello, Talia," the woman's voice said. "I hear you've been having quite a hard time here."

Blinking away tears, she looked up through her lashes. The woman was dressed in comfortable clothing, not the uniform-like attire of many telepaths, or the horrible getup that the Grins hid behind. Only the gloves marked her as anything other than ordinary. She looked down at her kindly as she continued to speak.

"That's okay. You know, it may have been quite a while since then but I do remember when I first came here. Everything was so new and frightening…"

So maybe it was okay to remember her past life after all? She wasn't going to ask, for fear of hearing the answer.

"I'm Abby. I'll be your friend if you want me to."

The hand was removed from her back and held out to her instead.

"If you'll dry your tears, I can show you some of the places I used to go to when I was your age."

Shutting a door in her mind tightly to protect that memory she had just vowed to cling to, Talia shakily got to her feet. She rubbed a sleeve over her eyes and managed an uncertain shadow of a smile.

  
  
Illustration by Rebekah

 

2246

 

Talia could hardly believe she had been so lucky.

Over the years, she had kept her vow, adding protections to that part of her memory that she let none, not even the Corps, who had become her mother and father, take away from her. She loved the Corps, she really did, but nothing would take the knowledge of her origin from her. As she grew older and received training for her powers, she carefully improved those defenses.

She almost laughed at that ridiculous, flimsy thing she had called a door at barely six.

At this point, even she forgot those memories were there, for the most time. Nevertheless, they were fed and kept alive, every time she saw or heard that line that was PsiCorps' credo.

Today, she had nearly been found out.

She was thirteen, just about to start Minor Academy, and as it was PsiCorps' custom – even though she had not known thus before today – she and the other children in her cadre had been collected by the Grins, stripped naked, driven into an assembly hall and subjected to a violent scan and broadcast of all their hidden and shameful thoughts.

In retrospect, it had been a good thing that she had not known what to expect. It had been a good thing that she had not had time to worry about what happened if they found that safe place in her mind, with the few memories she had stored in it. As it was, she frantically, haphazardly went searching for other memories, things she could offer up instead, the moment she had realized what was going on.

They mistook her sudden grasping and groping through her memory as an attempt at hiding the very thoughts she was hoping they would find and be content with.

She had no illusions about it, as she thoughtfully stroked the supple material of her first pair of gloves. The only reason they had not found that hidey-hole was that they had had no reason to expect it to be there. The only reason they had not recognized what she was doing for what it was had been that they had become complacent over the years, used to the children reacting _just so_.

Silently, she added another layer of protections.

 

2253

 

They had declared the tests ended and her fit to return to regular duty.

They had assured her that everything was alright. Of course it was. They had been taking good care of her. They were her family. The Corps was Mother. The Corps was Father.

There were blanks in her memory.

She had been seriously, life-threateningly sick following the events that had been blocked from her memory, for her own protection, as she had been told. Because if she knew what had happened, she would be a target. She had agreed to it, they said. Her file said so. She had signed the approval. She knew because she had checked.

Her mental fingers brushed that little grain of mirror-smooth blankness she had built over the years. The shields were not a blank, not a hole where thought should be. They were mirrors, reflecting, filling the blank they protected with randomness. Making it invisible even to her, except that she knew where to reach, how to reach, to access what was within.

Something kept her from doing it.

The mere thought of actually opening the inner sanctum of her mind and finding it empty, or replaced by something else, something she had not put there, caused panic to well up inside her. If they had taken that last solace from her, she did not want to know.

Not once in the years that followed did she manage to muster the courage to try.

2260

It felt good to be free. Control had been patient, biding her time, watching, listening, remembering and waiting. She had been patient, but, oh, how she had hated it. How she had hated that weak girl Talia, and the way she wasted her powers. Talia didn't have it in her to be a proper telepath. Talia was a shame to PsiCorps.

Now she was in control, and Control was who she was, even though she was called Talia for the sake of convenience. She was good at what she was doing. She knew where she fit in the scheme of things.

The only thing that left a slightly stale aftertaste was the fact that she had not yet found a way to access those extra powers Ironheart had given Talia. It appeared that like Talia, she would have to learn to use them, control them, wait for them to grow in her.

So far, she had not been successful at it.

It rankled her, but she could be patient if she had to. Six years hiding in Talia's mind had proven that.

The people she had talked to agreed with her. Talia was weak. Control would be able to take those powers to an entirely different level, once she gained full control of them. She remembered Talia's first pathetic efforts at using them. Patience. That was all she needed.

She had been welcomed back into PsiCorps with open arms, like a family member returned from a long journey – which she was. The Corps was her family. The Corps was Mother. The Corps was Father.

An image flashed in her mind, and she shook her head to clear it, squinting her eyes for a moment as if she had been exposed to a brief flash of bright light.

These moments came, from time to time. They didn't seem to have any effect on her, other than being a momentary distraction, so short that she hardly noticed them if she was actually focusing on something else. The only reason she had perceived this one so clearly probably was that she was focusing inward to begin with.

Maybe she should talk to someone about them… Just in case. There was the off chance that it was an indication of something worrying. You were supposed to be able to trust your parents with things like that, weren't you? After all, the Corps was Mother…

No, another thread of thought wormed its way into her considerations. No. She was strong. She was not Talia. Talia would have run crying for help. She was Control, she was in control, she was strong. She was not going to bother anyone about something that didn't even really disturb her.

It would go away on its own. On the other hand, it might be a hint of those extra powers coming through, picking up random flashes that were otherwise not perceptible to her.

Actually, that made sense. That made a lot of sense.

With a smile, she returned her attention to the work at hand.

 

 2260

 

Control's activation had caught her by surprise. She had had no idea that she had been there, though she knew where she had to have come from.

As she felt her mind, her personality being crushed by the sudden unfolding of that _other_ person inside her, Talia had mindlessly fled to the only safe place she knew in her mind, slamming the doors behind her.

She had not been entirely successful, but she had been able to save most of herself.

It was ironic, she assumed, the fear of discovering something planted in her mind that she did not want there having led to her never touching that mirrored sanctum again. Never disclosing it to Control, who apparently had been watching her every move.

It gave her a vicious sense of pleasure that she had taken Ironheart's gift with her. It was her gift, not Control's, and she would keep it from her for as long as she could. Indefinitely, if possible. And she thought that it was. She was stronger than Control could ever be, and she had the benefit of knowing that Control was there, while she was oblivious to her very presence.

Sitting in her mind bunker, she would bide her time until she could take back what was hers. Her body, her life. She was not dead, not destroyed as had certainly been the plan all along.

And every once in a while, when Control unwittingly opened up a crack in the mirror by using the 'password' she had built for herself all those years back, she slipped through a thought, an image, a memory. Rarely, maybe once in ten, fifteen attempts, she had been able to grab on to bits of Control, sink tiny little mind claws into her and hold on. It didn’t work often, and she spent lots of time and care on concealing those, even if it meant letting new cracks go and close unnoticed.

She wasn't going to risk anything by becoming rash.

Besides, Control used her passwords frequently. 

It was a matter of time, and nothing else, during which she would slowly erode Control's home in her mind from the inside.

A feeling like a smile spread through her consciousness.

No matter how long it took, she was going to win.

  
  
Illustration by Rebekah


End file.
